


our waking souls

by Newtondale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 10:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17743985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtondale/pseuds/Newtondale
Summary: Dean has lived a decent life, for a hunter. In his 40 years, he's made some mistakes. He's got some regrets. But this - ending up here with Cas? It's not one of them.





	our waking souls

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting a serious fic in over five years - constructive feedback is welcome, but go gentle on me. I'm as soft as Dean.
> 
> Big thank you to wingsandimpalas, reallyelegantsharkfish, and futureboy for reading over this for me! You're all angels!

Dean is tired.

 

He never seems to stop aching. His back, his arms, neck, feet – everywhere. His right knee has been giving trouble for years now, since a vampire hunt in ‘13. He pulled his left knee climbing out of a grave a few years later, and the same ankle in the fall right after. His right wrist complains whenever he picks up a knife, his left when he drives, and both have an annoying habit of clicking when they move. Every night in bed his feet throb from hours hunting, or his ass is numb from sitting researching or driving.  

 

And it’s not just the injuries, it’s his whole body. He doesn’t like to think he’s someone who cares about his weight, but his stomach is softer than it was before, his hips less sharp; a body that was once lean and toned, instead starting to reflect his age. And that’s all it is, his age; he looks good for – God, _40_ – but he never imagined he’d get here. Never imagined his body would make it to 30, even, not with the life they lead. 

 

It’s a life for younger men. 

 

He’s not old – not yet. 40 isn’t old, not by any means. He knows that. But for a hunter – he can count on one hand the hunters he’s known that lived into old age. The life caught up with them, will catch up with all of them. It’s caught up to him more times than he can count, and nowadays it feels like any death really could be his last. 

 

He used to be able to take this all in his stride. Now, it seems, it’s his stride that’s the damn problem. He can hardly move without hurting himself, can’t allow himself the time to heal, so the injuries linger. They fester, cause new problems and new weaknesses with every passing month. 

 

It feels like time is catching up with him, and he doesn’t know how long he has left.

 

Every long year is seared into his skin, every wound and every death, his body a map of scars upon scars. At this point, he’s not even sure if he remembers how he got them all; in earlier years he could count them, run his fingers over the smooth tissue and remind himself of each story, every hunt. It’s been so long since he counted, and now he doubts he could. There’s too many, some faded and some still fresh. Each a reminder of pain, of the misery and misfortune that plague him. 

 

His hands are the worst, palms broken over and over, by his own knife or otherwise. In some places, there are so many scars that he has no intact skin left, just patches of lumpy white. He runs his thumb over the scars, wills himself to feel anything, but it’s numb. He’s numb.

 

Where they’re not scarred, his hands are rough, years of misuse wearing away at what was once soft skin. Delicate, even, but his hands haven’t been delicate for decades. The years have hardened him; not just his hands, not just his joints. He remembers, once, he was full of youthful optimism, naive hope that he could make the world better. He wonders when that man perished. How many tragedies and losses it took for him to die his bloody death. 

 

Cas’ hands are rough, too, when they slide into Dean’s. A testament to how far he’s fallen, how long since Dean corrupted his whole being – his _soul,_ even, though the thought may be blasphemous. He used to be an angel, used to smite demons and monsters with a glance or a snap of his fingers. Now, he’s this: human, ageing, fragile as the rest of them. 

 

All because he fell.

 

He fell, for Dean. He ages with Dean. Grows weaker and tired with Dean. 

 

Their hands slip together, coarse palm to coarse palm. Every trial they’ve faced together written into their skin. Every scar on his tired body a memory of pain, yes, but also of the moments after. Of the weighted silences and tender minutes between the fighting and the heartache, alone with his agony and his angel. When Castiel would heal him with a brisk touch, or, later, would let his hands linger with all the comfort he could give without grace. They were forged in moments like that, lonely and in pain and by each other's side, always, always. 

 

When their lips brush for the first time, it’s bittersweet. Dean knows how his smile wrinkles his face, now, can feel Cas’ crow’s feet under his thumb. It’s taken them too damn long to get here, too many missed opportunities and wrong decisions. Too much loss. Too many tragedies. 

 

He’d give anything to be 26 again, hopeful and scared and believing there was more to his life than he’d seen so far. Filled with faith and promise and a desperation to prove himself worthy to the world. Maybe this time with the wisdom to know he was always worthy, that his path is his own, even in a life so ruled by fate. 

 

He’d give anything to be back in that god-forsaken barn, broken and bloody from the horrors he’d seen, unprepared for the horrors yet to come. To meet Castiel for the first time, to fall in love again. To make different choices, better choices, save them all the time they’ve lost between hesitance and fear. To give himself fully to the man he – _Fuck_.

 

He’d give anything to skip to the ending, to be safe and secure in a home of his own, Castiel by his side – Castiel, by his side, always. To know that it’s all been worth it, that he’s been worth it, that maybe, just once, they can have a happy ending. 

 

Castiel kisses him again, and he’s ready to give everything he has to _this._ This moment, this man, the future they’ll build together. It may take time, and hard work, but it’s nothing they haven’t already given each other a thousand times over. They’ve always been in this for the long-haul, even if they didn’t realise it before. 

 

Castiel kisses him again, and he promises home. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> “I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I  
> Did, till we loved?  
> …  
> And now now good-morrow to our waking souls,  
> Which watch not one another out of fear;  
> For love, all love of other sights controls,  
> And makes one little room an everywhere.”  
> \- John Donne, The Good-Morrow


End file.
